their guidance are in progress against Him-within bowshot, inside the Temple area and the Roman Prætorium. But what they do not know is that they are entering into an insane conflict, ruinous to their kingdom; a conflict with their God, Who saw them fall like lightning out of Heaven.

That He is a Just Man, and a Prophet, and the Messias, and the Christ, they have found out. That much well they know; but that He is the Word made Flesh they do not know. The secret of His conception in the womb of His Virgin Mother has been carefully hidden from them. And, therefore, believing that they are going to struggle with one who, however holy, is not more than a mortal man, they are bold and daring and hopeful, and put forth all their energy and exert all their intellect to work His overthrow.

STATION II.

which He entered with His disAnd He began to fear and to

There was a garden, into
ciples (St. John xviii.).
be heavy (St. Mark xiv.).
and to be sad (St. Matt. xxvi.).

He began to grow sorrowful

A. He began to fear and to be heavy--to grow sorrowful and to be sad.

This is the evidence that Jesus, to Whom all power is given, has Himself given the signal that the conflict may be commenced. For till He says the word, and gives permission, There shall no evil come to Thee, O Lord. Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night, of the arrow that flieth in the day (Psalm xc.). The sun shall not burn Thee by day, nor the moon by night (Psalm cxx.). For where else, if not in Thy Most Sacred Heart, is that secure Tabernacle of God with men, that Heaven, where death has no power to come, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow? (Apoc. xxi.). B. He began to fear and to be heavy-to grow sorrowful and to be sad.

Doubtless it was from the three chosen witnesses that

the Evangelists afterwards learned what they wrote down for us. St. Peter remembered and told St. Mark how their loved Master in that hour began to fear and to be heavy; others repeated to St. Matthew that He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. They only told what their eyes had seen and their ears heard.

For in the moonlight they can see how the paleness of death has overspread His sacred face; and that a look of inexpressible distress and anguish has quite disfigured the beauty of His countenance. "We saw Him," they would afterwards tell, we saw Him, and there was no beauty in Him, nor comeliness: no, nor even sightliness. We were dismayed and horror-stricken and scandalised; for we heard Him sobbing as if His Heart would break, and saw His tears falling fast, and all His strength apparently gone from His wasted Body, for His footsteps were faltering, and His limbs all trembled; and we were sore afraid that we were going to see Him sink down on the sward never to rise again, when He turned to speak to us with His choked and broken voice."

STATION III.

And He saith to them: My Soul is sorrowful even unto death (St. Matt. xxvi. 38).

A. Here, for the first time, they have the explanation of His deep silence since He left the Cenacle. We must bear in mind that our guides and masters in the study of the Sacred Passion remind us that we are not to pass these words by as if they are only a figure of speech. They understand them to be an exact account of what is going on within our Blessed Lord. It may probably be that permission is given to Satan to spread over His Sacred Soul that heavy night of desolation which comes up from the lowest and deepest Hell (Wisdom xvii.). Or else the natural power of fear and sadness and heaviness of heart are now permitted to work upon Him to the fullest extent.

However this may be, we must accept the words in their strict sense, and believe that He is enduring, in its most aggravated form, all the anguish and distress which sometimes oppresses the dying, when the great agony sets in and the soul must perforce go forth from the body. He alone among men, a holy writer observes, without dying endured all the bitterness of death. So much so, that had it not been already decreed that Jesus shall not die here, but on Calvary at the ninth hour, there is certainly in this hour enough of sorrow and anguish at work within His breast to cause the silver cord of life to snap, and the golden fillet of health and beauty to shrink back for ever; and the pitcher that holds His life-blood to be crushed at the fountain; and the wheel of His Nativity to be broken upon the cistern and stopped short in its course (Eccles. xii.).

"O Jesus, sorrowful for me unto death, penetrate my soul with the truth of Thy word: Blessed are they that mourn with Thee."

STATION IV.

And He saith to them: My Soul is sorrowful even unto death. Stay you here and watch with Me (St. Matt. xxvi). And when He was come to the place, He said: Pray, lest you enter into temptation (St. Luke xxii.).

A. He said: Pray, lest you enter into temptation.

We must notice how sorrow and sadness and fear in all their intensity can never turn our Lord's Soul one hair's breadth from perfect love. In the prophetic description of this night watch He says to us: The waters have come in even to My Soul. I am come into the depths of the sea: and a tempest hath overwhelmed Me (Psalm lxviii.).

Now we are constantly reminded in the chronicles of this world, that when men are to such an extent worked upon by great fear and sadness that they commit suicide or some other great crime, they are commonly held by

their fellow-men to be comparatively blameless, because, so it is said, they were labouring under temporary insanity. The Holy Spirit also describes fear as nothing else but a yielding up of the succours from thought. These words mean that fear so paralyses the soul that it can no longer help itself with reasoning. All these paroxysms, however, of fear and sadness which are supposed to madden, are not like the load that is in this hour oppressing our Saviour's Soul. He can safely say to all of us who contemplate Him: Stay a little while, and see if there be sorrow like to My sorrow (Lament. i.).

B. Yes, sorrow and fear are doing all that they can do; but still He can with all His Heart and all His thought take care of His disciples.

His sorrow is a sorrow unto death. It is a sorrow strong enough to break His Heart and cause death. But it is not a sorrow that can conquer His charity, which is strong as death, and stronger. The waters have come in even unto (His) Soul. True; but as His Holy Spirit has told us: Many waters cannot quench charity: neither can the floods drown it. To Him, more than to all others, His Eternal Father has given a commandment concerning His neighbours. And in the beginning of the Book it is written that He will do most perfectly this will of His Father, as every other. Never for one moment can He think of saving His own Soul only (Esther iv.) from sorrow and anguish. On the contrary, the one sole cause why He is in this extremity of anguish is because He loved me and delivered Himself up for me.

C. When the winds and the waves were raging on the lake in Galilee, one word from Him commanded them all. So it is now. The passion of fear is strong; sadness is strong; sorrow is strong; but though these passions rise to their topmost height, they never will conquer the charity in His Heart; the voice of His love will ever be dominant and supreme over them.

D. He said: Pray, lest you enter into temptation.

He does not tell us to pray not to be tempted. For our life must be a warfare, and we must be soldiers, and must fight a good fight. But oh! how earnestly He desires that when Satan comes to tempt, and so to allure us away from our God, our Lord, our Creator, our loving Father, our most merciful Redeemer, we may not listen to the temptation, or enter into it, or go over to the side of Satan and agree with him, and make ourselves his subjects and his slaves.

E. Stay you here and watch with Me.

Watch with Me. Keep a vigil with ME; watch as a friend watches by the sick-bed of a suffering friend. Let Me have at least the comfort of knowing that some of those I love are remembering Me in My sorrow. Remember Me, think of Me, for without any fault am I come out from the bosom of My Father and cast into this extremity of sorrow. But even this small solace He does not get. I looked for one that would grieve together with Me, but there was none: and for one that would comfort Me, and I found none (Psalm lxviii.).

F. Watch with ME.

It ought not to be hard to watch with our Saviour.. To spend the night sleepless and watchful in weary longing for the dawn, and full of anxious thoughts, all this is grievous indeed; but if our Saviour is watching with us and we are watching with Him, surely all is changed.

In the Cenacle He said: You shall be scattered and shall leave Me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. May we not say words akin to these: "In sorrow I am not alone, because Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, is always with the suffering"? Remain with Me, for I will carry the yoke with you, and so My yoke will be sweet and My burden light.

G. Stay you here and watch with Me.

They were standing on the slope of Mount Olivet, very near the base, when our Blessed Saviour spoke these words. A bed